One of the Best Masterpiece 2025
He Yan, our FL, was born into a noble family whose eldest son He Rufei, born sick and frail. Upon receiving diagnosis that the boy wouldn’t live long, they decided to swap He Yan to assume the role in order to avoid their noble title being revoked with no male heir. So henceforth starts He Yan being raised as a boy, and as her feminine features started to be more evident, her family made her wear a mask 24/7 even while sleeping. One day she decided to run away from home when she overheard her parents discussing about her marriage to a girl, and went to enlist in the army. Despite being a mediocre student at school, always ranking last or second last, she rose to prominence in the army. On the day she returned home after receiving General Feihong title from the emperor, she finally got to meet the step brother she was subtituting for, He Rufei. A reunion that she thought was supposed to be happy, turned out to be her death sentence. She passed out from being poisoned, and when she came to, she discovered that she had turned blind. The family sent her to the temple where He Rufei had grew up in, and later He Rufei sent his bodyguard to kill He Yan to keep the secret sealed. She was stabbed with a sword, and fell off a cliff into a body of water. She thought she had died, but eventually woke up in a house. It was her shifu who had rescued her, and cured her blind eyes. Then starts her journey to enlist into ML’s army, starting from the bottom again, but this time she was not mediocre anymore. She became the num 1 recruit in the camp, with a mission to gather enough military merits to stand as high as He Rufei and reclaim her title.
I must say Zhou Ye is not bad as a cross dresser, didnt look too feminine especially in the chest area, though her character did not look as rough as Zhang Tian An’s A Mai in Fighting for Love. I still think Zhang Tian An is the best cross dresser out there, Zhou Ye being the second. I like how she smiles so wide to emulate the carefree and mischievous air of the novel He Yan. She is nimble and wields weapons convincingly good, never looking weak or clumsy like some other actress who took up female warrior roles that i’ve seen, so I can tell that she worked real hard to make the role work. She is also very expressive and able to convey her emotion accurately. This is the first time that I saw her work, and I am impressed at how she managed to blend the mixed emotions of the cheerful ever so carefree He Yan and the gloomy and sombre look whenever she recalled her previous life as a substitute to He Rufei. The change of emotions are really seamless, with her wide smile basically holding the key.
As for the ML, I have always felt the Ryan has an air of a male lead after watching his performance in My Journey to You. This is my second show of him, and of course he did not disappoint. I knew he can deliver the cold and ruthless role of Xiao Jue, as his role in My Journey To You was even more complex and hardcore. So his performance in LotFG was explosive. Being the second son in a military family with the eldest’s constitution not suitable to carry the army flag, Xiao Jue had to be the one to continue his father’s legacy. He had to train twice as hard to live up to the expectation, making him revered by all but living like an empty shell as he bottles up everything. He Yan became the first of everything for him, even before he realized she was a girl. She became his spark of life.
The storyline is very engaging, and I finished bingeing in less than 3 days. I am glad they changed the plot to assasination survival instead of the cliche reborn into another’s body like in the novel. The adaptation’s plot is more believable and connected than the novel’s. It always bothered me that novel He Yan never got to personally reclaim her General Feihong title because she was in another person’s body. All she could do was reveal the deceit of her previous family to restore the claim to the dead He Yan. It’s just not quite as fullfilling. Am so glad the screenwriter changed this flaw.
I really love the action choreograph, really fluid with mesmerising moves, i truly commend the choreoghrapher. The battle scenes, the sword fights, the clashings are all impressive and amazing. The supporting casts are all very talented and impressive.
The themesongs are the bomb! With names like Curley Gao and Zhou Shen of course they wouldnt disappoint. I’m totally adding them to my running playlist!
SPOILER BEYOND THIS LINE!!
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In the novel He Yan never got to call her mother, ever. Not when she was a child because they prevented them from meeting and not after she emerged from the ashes of death as she was reborn into another person’s body. I am glad she and her mother finally got the chance in the adaptation to properly reconcile and that she was able to grieve openly for her.
Yingxiang’s death was less tragic than the novel, but definitely very laughable. I would think for a martial artist like her, it’d be easier to deflect the knife wielded by a frail woman like Xu Pingting than slip her body in between them to bear the brunt for her beloved young master. Like seriously? That short of a distance and she actually manage to squeeze between them to take the stab when she was originally standing behind Chu Zhao? Omg i laughed instead of feeling sad at her demise - i like her character very much. They could at least make Xu Pingting stab a sword or shoot an arrow from a distance to make it more realistic. Or make her pull Chu Zhao to stand behind her and then take the stab. Any of those are definitely physically easier to do that trying to sqeeze in between. It’s truly pitiful that her role was so minor that she couldnt survive a 3-inch deep stab to the shoulderblade. Had her role been a more important one, she wouldve survived arrows, spears or swords being stabbed straight to the gut, or stabbed with a hook right through (like how he yan survived 😆). Yingxiang’s death had been more realistic in the novel in this part.
I must say Zhou Ye is not bad as a cross dresser, didnt look too feminine especially in the chest area, though her character did not look as rough as Zhang Tian An’s A Mai in Fighting for Love. I still think Zhang Tian An is the best cross dresser out there, Zhou Ye being the second. I like how she smiles so wide to emulate the carefree and mischievous air of the novel He Yan. She is nimble and wields weapons convincingly good, never looking weak or clumsy like some other actress who took up female warrior roles that i’ve seen, so I can tell that she worked real hard to make the role work. She is also very expressive and able to convey her emotion accurately. This is the first time that I saw her work, and I am impressed at how she managed to blend the mixed emotions of the cheerful ever so carefree He Yan and the gloomy and sombre look whenever she recalled her previous life as a substitute to He Rufei. The change of emotions are really seamless, with her wide smile basically holding the key.
As for the ML, I have always felt the Ryan has an air of a male lead after watching his performance in My Journey to You. This is my second show of him, and of course he did not disappoint. I knew he can deliver the cold and ruthless role of Xiao Jue, as his role in My Journey To You was even more complex and hardcore. So his performance in LotFG was explosive. Being the second son in a military family with the eldest’s constitution not suitable to carry the army flag, Xiao Jue had to be the one to continue his father’s legacy. He had to train twice as hard to live up to the expectation, making him revered by all but living like an empty shell as he bottles up everything. He Yan became the first of everything for him, even before he realized she was a girl. She became his spark of life.
The storyline is very engaging, and I finished bingeing in less than 3 days. I am glad they changed the plot to assasination survival instead of the cliche reborn into another’s body like in the novel. The adaptation’s plot is more believable and connected than the novel’s. It always bothered me that novel He Yan never got to personally reclaim her General Feihong title because she was in another person’s body. All she could do was reveal the deceit of her previous family to restore the claim to the dead He Yan. It’s just not quite as fullfilling. Am so glad the screenwriter changed this flaw.
I really love the action choreograph, really fluid with mesmerising moves, i truly commend the choreoghrapher. The battle scenes, the sword fights, the clashings are all impressive and amazing. The supporting casts are all very talented and impressive.
The themesongs are the bomb! With names like Curley Gao and Zhou Shen of course they wouldnt disappoint. I’m totally adding them to my running playlist!
SPOILER BEYOND THIS LINE!!
.
.
.
.
.
.
In the novel He Yan never got to call her mother, ever. Not when she was a child because they prevented them from meeting and not after she emerged from the ashes of death as she was reborn into another person’s body. I am glad she and her mother finally got the chance in the adaptation to properly reconcile and that she was able to grieve openly for her.
Yingxiang’s death was less tragic than the novel, but definitely very laughable. I would think for a martial artist like her, it’d be easier to deflect the knife wielded by a frail woman like Xu Pingting than slip her body in between them to bear the brunt for her beloved young master. Like seriously? That short of a distance and she actually manage to squeeze between them to take the stab when she was originally standing behind Chu Zhao? Omg i laughed instead of feeling sad at her demise - i like her character very much. They could at least make Xu Pingting stab a sword or shoot an arrow from a distance to make it more realistic. Or make her pull Chu Zhao to stand behind her and then take the stab. Any of those are definitely physically easier to do that trying to sqeeze in between. It’s truly pitiful that her role was so minor that she couldnt survive a 3-inch deep stab to the shoulderblade. Had her role been a more important one, she wouldve survived arrows, spears or swords being stabbed straight to the gut, or stabbed with a hook right through (like how he yan survived 😆). Yingxiang’s death had been more realistic in the novel in this part.
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